Entry tags:
Zemo thoughts
.... that have been bouncing around in my head. Spoilers for the whole show.
• Feeding people is his love language. (Also occasionally his manipulation language.)
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scioscribe pointed out that it's at least partly noblesse oblige, a sort of old-style gentry thing where he needs to be the consummate host, and I think that's totally true, but it's also clear that he doesn't do it for people when he doesn't want to. Which is demonstrated pretty clearly in the two scenes on the plane in 1x03, before and after everything in Madripoor.
In the first scene, he drinks champagne (no one else gets offered any), and makes the joke to his butler about giving the spoiled food to Sam and Bucky. Clearly the only person getting fed here is Zemo.
In the second scene at the end of the episode, after everything goes down in Madripoor, he brings them food - doesn't just get his butler to do it, but does it himself. And then he continues to go on trying to serve them food/drink throughout the whole sequences where they're staying in Riga. (And also uses it as his means of bribery/currying favor with the kids while they're seeking information.)
It's obviously not nearly as clear-cut as just "Zemo likes these people, so he tries to feed them" - I don't think there's a simple reason for anything Zemo does, and very little he does that doesn't have at least two reasons behind it; it's currying favor, it's getting people on his side, it's establishing a particular relationship in a particular way. But I do think there's an element of genuine liking, because he doesn't do it until they've had a chance to bond a little bit and save each other's lives a few times. Obviously they still can't trust him and vice versa, they're partners of necessity and not much more, but there's still that little extra element where he keeps offering them hospitality that seems to be genuine, where before his interactions with them were more cautious and edged.
• He reacts a little more to things that could hurt him in 1x04 (the Riga episode) than he does in 1x03 (the Madripoor episode).
So basically I figure he spends all of the show not really caring if he lives or dies (with panache, but still) and then sets everything up for his death at the memorial (which then doesn't happen) - but I think by the second of his episodes, he actually is starting to be more affected by danger; he's starting to ease up a little on this sort of disaffected calm that he has in the previous episode and actually react to things.
There's a really good example of this in the way he reacts to Bucky grabbing his neck on the plane in 1x03 vs. when Bucky throws the tea across the room in 1x04. There's hardly any reaction in 1x03; he just gives him a little nod, and Bucky lets him go, and Zemo goes on as before.
But in 1x04 when Bucky throws the tea across the room, he reacts. He looks scared. And there's that little relieved sigh and sag after Bucky leaves.
There's something similar when Walker & Lemar burst in to arrest him: first of all he looks kind of shocked and scared, and then he gets up and wanders behind Sam and Bucky, putting them between him and the people who want to hurt him. Which, first of all, LOL, but I don't remember him doing anything of the sort in 1x03. Even when he orders Bucky to protect him in the bar, it's a role, a demonstration. This is something else; it's the idea that he'd be safer behind them than defending himself on his own. To be fair, "behind the toughest people in the room" is probably a safer place to be than not, but only if you trust them not to turn on you.
I mean ultimately he uses the chaos as an excuse to escape (which he could've done almost any time he wanted, something else I have Feelings™ about). But it's interesting to me that first of all he does react, on some level, to threats in a way he didn't before, and second he kinda-sorta trusts Sam and Bucky to protect him and not just hand him over.
That little flash of fear/surprise when Walker comes in is also coming right on the heels of perhaps the most vulnerable scene he's had so far, the conversation that he has with Sam about Karli while lying on the sofa, mildly concussed, before Bucky comes in.
When he's talking to Sam, he's hurt, his defenses are a little down compared to normal, and he's open, in a way he hasn't been up to this point. He's still not entirely unguarded, but he's kind of - reaching out, trying to get Sam to understand him and get Sam on board with what he wants to do, not manipulatively but just because he's trying to explain, because he wants Sam to be on his side in this. He doesn't want Sam to try to stop him, and maybe just a little, doesn't want Sam to get killed trying to reach Karli when Zemo believes there's nothing left to reach.
And Sam reciprocates that unusual openness and willingness to reach out to each other with the Bucky thing ... I find it hard to believe that Sam two episodes ago would have thought that "do you really think Bucky is evil too" would be any kind of an argument that would sway Zemo.
I think that might be the one scene in the whole show when they have an open and honest conversation and seem to be connecting as people. Zemo plays roles, and especially early on, I think all that he shows is what he wants people to see (meekness in the garage with Sam and Bucky, confidence later on, etc) - there are obviously little bits of human connection here and there, like asking about the Sokovian memorial, or bringing them tea, or those little flashes of fear/upset. But it's incidental. This might be one of the very few bits of the show where he didn't seem to be putting on a face for a purpose. I wish the show could've given them a few more episodes to move on from this to wherever it led.
I get the feeling that he's been coming back to life a little bit, being around these guys - it's not that they're all BFFs or that anything in Zemo's moral compass has changed in particular, but it feels, in some sense, like he wants to be alive a little more than he did before he met them, even if that's not really how he frames it, and I would have watched 50 episodes of Kinda Redemption Road Trip, I'm just saying.
(Also: after seeing how sartorially put together he is in Madripoor and Riga, this makes his unkempt look in prison, when Bucky shows up, take on whole new dimensions of his state of mind at that point.)
• I have thought a lot about his plan between the time he disappeared from Riga and when he showed up at the memorial.
Actually a lot of my thoughts were just "What the heck was his plan anyway?"
But I think it's ultimately kind of an echo of what he did at the end of CA:CW in Siberia. Basically: he sets things up and prepares to die.
I went back and forth on exactly when the explosion in New York was set up, but I think it had to have been before he went to prison, because it doesn't really make sense that he would be ready to die with his work unfinished. So basically he puts into motion whatever wheels need to be in motion in order to take out the remaining supersoldiers, makes the decision to leave Bucky alive, and then waits at the memorial for - as he thinks - Bucky to come and kill him.
For whatever reason (rationally deciding that Bucky doesn't seem to be corrupted by the serum? genuinely liking him? both?) Zemo has decided Bucky is an exception to his belief that supersoldiers are too dangerous to live. Bucky still has his humanity; he's not gone. (Interestingly enough this is the exact opposite of what other people who know about the Winter Soldier program, at one time, thought about Bucky; Zemo has come around 100% on Bucky to an extent that a lot of people don't!) But Bucky is also a killer. So Zemo hinges this entire part of his plan around the following axioms: a) Bucky deserves to live, or at least Zemo doesn't want to kill him, but b) Bucky is a trained and conditioned killer, and Bucky - Zemo assumes - wants Zemo to die. Which he's okay with. Relieved, maybe. Suicide by Bucky.
It's a sort of penance, isn't it?
Except Bucky doesn't play the game by Zemo's rules. And clearly had decided not to kill him before approaching him, since he'd already taken the bullets out of the gun. It's the same thing that happened with T'Challa ... not absolution exactly, or forgiveness, but once again it's Zemo having his life saved/being pushed back into living by someone he very validly assumed would have wanted him to die, whether he wants to live or not.
(I do wish they hadn't twisted the knife with the little satisfied smile at the end; I'd like to think his time with Sam and Bucky has introduced at least a small seed of doubt about the rightness of his actions. However, it's the MCU; gotta keep people in the right hero/villain boxes! I hate the last scene of Punisher S2 for basically the same reason.)
• Feeding people is his love language. (Also occasionally his manipulation language.)
scioscribe pointed out that it's at least partly noblesse oblige, a sort of old-style gentry thing where he needs to be the consummate host, and I think that's totally true, but it's also clear that he doesn't do it for people when he doesn't want to. Which is demonstrated pretty clearly in the two scenes on the plane in 1x03, before and after everything in Madripoor.In the first scene, he drinks champagne (no one else gets offered any), and makes the joke to his butler about giving the spoiled food to Sam and Bucky. Clearly the only person getting fed here is Zemo.
In the second scene at the end of the episode, after everything goes down in Madripoor, he brings them food - doesn't just get his butler to do it, but does it himself. And then he continues to go on trying to serve them food/drink throughout the whole sequences where they're staying in Riga. (And also uses it as his means of bribery/currying favor with the kids while they're seeking information.)
It's obviously not nearly as clear-cut as just "Zemo likes these people, so he tries to feed them" - I don't think there's a simple reason for anything Zemo does, and very little he does that doesn't have at least two reasons behind it; it's currying favor, it's getting people on his side, it's establishing a particular relationship in a particular way. But I do think there's an element of genuine liking, because he doesn't do it until they've had a chance to bond a little bit and save each other's lives a few times. Obviously they still can't trust him and vice versa, they're partners of necessity and not much more, but there's still that little extra element where he keeps offering them hospitality that seems to be genuine, where before his interactions with them were more cautious and edged.
• He reacts a little more to things that could hurt him in 1x04 (the Riga episode) than he does in 1x03 (the Madripoor episode).
So basically I figure he spends all of the show not really caring if he lives or dies (with panache, but still) and then sets everything up for his death at the memorial (which then doesn't happen) - but I think by the second of his episodes, he actually is starting to be more affected by danger; he's starting to ease up a little on this sort of disaffected calm that he has in the previous episode and actually react to things.
There's a really good example of this in the way he reacts to Bucky grabbing his neck on the plane in 1x03 vs. when Bucky throws the tea across the room in 1x04. There's hardly any reaction in 1x03; he just gives him a little nod, and Bucky lets him go, and Zemo goes on as before.
But in 1x04 when Bucky throws the tea across the room, he reacts. He looks scared. And there's that little relieved sigh and sag after Bucky leaves.
There's something similar when Walker & Lemar burst in to arrest him: first of all he looks kind of shocked and scared, and then he gets up and wanders behind Sam and Bucky, putting them between him and the people who want to hurt him. Which, first of all, LOL, but I don't remember him doing anything of the sort in 1x03. Even when he orders Bucky to protect him in the bar, it's a role, a demonstration. This is something else; it's the idea that he'd be safer behind them than defending himself on his own. To be fair, "behind the toughest people in the room" is probably a safer place to be than not, but only if you trust them not to turn on you.
I mean ultimately he uses the chaos as an excuse to escape (which he could've done almost any time he wanted, something else I have Feelings™ about). But it's interesting to me that first of all he does react, on some level, to threats in a way he didn't before, and second he kinda-sorta trusts Sam and Bucky to protect him and not just hand him over.
That little flash of fear/surprise when Walker comes in is also coming right on the heels of perhaps the most vulnerable scene he's had so far, the conversation that he has with Sam about Karli while lying on the sofa, mildly concussed, before Bucky comes in.
When he's talking to Sam, he's hurt, his defenses are a little down compared to normal, and he's open, in a way he hasn't been up to this point. He's still not entirely unguarded, but he's kind of - reaching out, trying to get Sam to understand him and get Sam on board with what he wants to do, not manipulatively but just because he's trying to explain, because he wants Sam to be on his side in this. He doesn't want Sam to try to stop him, and maybe just a little, doesn't want Sam to get killed trying to reach Karli when Zemo believes there's nothing left to reach.
And Sam reciprocates that unusual openness and willingness to reach out to each other with the Bucky thing ... I find it hard to believe that Sam two episodes ago would have thought that "do you really think Bucky is evil too" would be any kind of an argument that would sway Zemo.
I think that might be the one scene in the whole show when they have an open and honest conversation and seem to be connecting as people. Zemo plays roles, and especially early on, I think all that he shows is what he wants people to see (meekness in the garage with Sam and Bucky, confidence later on, etc) - there are obviously little bits of human connection here and there, like asking about the Sokovian memorial, or bringing them tea, or those little flashes of fear/upset. But it's incidental. This might be one of the very few bits of the show where he didn't seem to be putting on a face for a purpose. I wish the show could've given them a few more episodes to move on from this to wherever it led.
I get the feeling that he's been coming back to life a little bit, being around these guys - it's not that they're all BFFs or that anything in Zemo's moral compass has changed in particular, but it feels, in some sense, like he wants to be alive a little more than he did before he met them, even if that's not really how he frames it, and I would have watched 50 episodes of Kinda Redemption Road Trip, I'm just saying.
(Also: after seeing how sartorially put together he is in Madripoor and Riga, this makes his unkempt look in prison, when Bucky shows up, take on whole new dimensions of his state of mind at that point.)
• I have thought a lot about his plan between the time he disappeared from Riga and when he showed up at the memorial.
Actually a lot of my thoughts were just "What the heck was his plan anyway?"
But I think it's ultimately kind of an echo of what he did at the end of CA:CW in Siberia. Basically: he sets things up and prepares to die.
I went back and forth on exactly when the explosion in New York was set up, but I think it had to have been before he went to prison, because it doesn't really make sense that he would be ready to die with his work unfinished. So basically he puts into motion whatever wheels need to be in motion in order to take out the remaining supersoldiers, makes the decision to leave Bucky alive, and then waits at the memorial for - as he thinks - Bucky to come and kill him.
For whatever reason (rationally deciding that Bucky doesn't seem to be corrupted by the serum? genuinely liking him? both?) Zemo has decided Bucky is an exception to his belief that supersoldiers are too dangerous to live. Bucky still has his humanity; he's not gone. (Interestingly enough this is the exact opposite of what other people who know about the Winter Soldier program, at one time, thought about Bucky; Zemo has come around 100% on Bucky to an extent that a lot of people don't!) But Bucky is also a killer. So Zemo hinges this entire part of his plan around the following axioms: a) Bucky deserves to live, or at least Zemo doesn't want to kill him, but b) Bucky is a trained and conditioned killer, and Bucky - Zemo assumes - wants Zemo to die. Which he's okay with. Relieved, maybe. Suicide by Bucky.
It's a sort of penance, isn't it?
Except Bucky doesn't play the game by Zemo's rules. And clearly had decided not to kill him before approaching him, since he'd already taken the bullets out of the gun. It's the same thing that happened with T'Challa ... not absolution exactly, or forgiveness, but once again it's Zemo having his life saved/being pushed back into living by someone he very validly assumed would have wanted him to die, whether he wants to live or not.
(I do wish they hadn't twisted the knife with the little satisfied smile at the end; I'd like to think his time with Sam and Bucky has introduced at least a small seed of doubt about the rightness of his actions. However, it's the MCU; gotta keep people in the right hero/villain boxes! I hate the last scene of Punisher S2 for basically the same reason.)
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Insofar as I have memories of Civil War beyond "this is much longer and stupider than it really needed to be" and "T'Challa!" I remember that Zemo became most interesting to me in his last scene, both because he sincerely intended suicide and because he wasn't allowed it. Death by atonement is such a popular trope and I hate it regardless of who it's assigned to; even if it was a strategic retention of a character for farther down the line, it still got my attention that a Marvel property averted it at all.
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Is it plausible for him to have his face back on when he smiles? (Would he admit he'd changed his mind about any of his plans, even to people in whose company he not only didn't succeed in killing himself—again—he came back a little to life?)
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Unlike everyone else we've seen, Bucky didn't volunteer to take the serum. It's plausible that the other Winter Soldiers who were killed off at the end of Civil War were volun-told, because they were already military, but at least as far as Zemo knows, they agreed to take the serum. Karli and her crew voluntarily took it. Red Skull, John Walker and Steve Rogers voluntarily took it. Bucky did not. Earlier on, Zemo definitely doesn't see that distinction, but I think he does by the time he makes his escape.
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Secondly, this is awesome: I love your detailed breakdown of all the changes in his behavior during the time he's with Sam and Bucky, and I really like the idea that he comes back to life a little with them--still accepting what he thinks is his necessary death, but not just accepting everything that happens because he's too disconnected/emotionally burned out inside to care anyway. (This is why one of my big Zemo h/c wishes is that he work with Sam and Bucky for a while, become more loyal to them than he'd like to admit, and then potentially get framed for something/used as a scapegoat, putting him through the emotional agony of caring DEEPLY that Sam and Bucky might think he's betrayed them when he actually hasn't.)
(I do wish they hadn't twisted the knife with the little satisfied smile at the end; I'd like to think his time with Sam and Bucky has introduced at least a small seed of doubt about the rightness of his actions.
Clearly this just means he needs more time with Sam and Bucky, for both the sake of his worldview and my own emotional gratification. :D
I'm okay with the idea of him having gotten a Bucky-sized exception/exception for people who didn't choose the serum and don't seem to be embracing its effects for their own gain, but I can see him still (for now) taking a hard-line on people who deliberately super-soldiered-ed themselves, so I didn't mind the smile as much. He's a work in progress in terms of revamping his philosophy, but I definitely think more time with Sam and Bucky would not only introduce more seeds of doubt but let them flower.
I do kind of like the idea of his exact stance always being a little different from theirs, though, even in my imaginary AU canon where they basically become an established trio of problem-solvers. Not that I want them to really be at odds and certainly not in danger of going against each other, but I apparently have a soft spot for characters dealing with ongoing moral conflicts/some genuinely different priorities and still having common ground and a lot of affection. And it kind of keeps up a thread of there not being a simple, straightforward answer to the question of how we do the right thing, which seems to fit Sam's worldview and be part of what defines his Captain America run.
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Isn't it? :D It was obtained from here (h/t to
(This is why one of my big Zemo h/c wishes is that he work with Sam and Bucky for a while, become more loyal to them than he'd like to admit, and then potentially get framed for something/used as a scapegoat, putting him through the emotional agony of caring DEEPLY that Sam and Bucky might think he's betrayed them when he actually hasn't.)
OMG PLEASE WRITE THIS. *__* Yeah, I was disappointed that the Bucky-Sam-and-Zemo road trip only lasted 2 episodes (maybe if the show had been longer, there would have been more) because their slow warming up to each other is so gratifying and enjoyable in just two episodes, and changed so much in that short amount of time - another few episodes like that would have bee so lovely. Oh well, this is what fanfic is for! I want ALL the variations on reluctant loyalty and denial and characters accidentally tripping over the feelings they're steadfastly determined to deny are there.
I do kind of like the idea of his exact stance always being a little different from theirs, though, even in my imaginary AU canon where they basically become an established trio of problem-solvers. Not that I want them to really be at odds and certainly not in danger of going against each other, but I apparently have a soft spot for characters dealing with ongoing moral conflicts/some genuinely different priorities and still having common ground and a lot of affection. And it kind of keeps up a thread of there not being a simple, straightforward answer to the question of how we do the right thing, which seems to fit Sam's worldview and be part of what defines his Captain America run.
Yes, same! I don't want him to come all the way around to Sam and Bucky's viewpoint - for one thing, I don't think he SHOULD, since he's always going to be coming from the perspective of someone whose life was utterly destroyed because of what amounts to a sort of superhero-y metaphor for American imperialism. He's never going to be fully okay with it and never should be, because that clash of irreconcilable viewpoints is where my id lives. I want to see them finding more common ground without anyone on either side having to compromise their principles - maybe just softening the black-and-white edges of their principles a bit. More of a Magneto-and-Professor-X kind of thing, where Magneto is never going to stop believing in the things he believes in, but he does eventually admit that he likes people on the other side and they have a point sometimes and can work together for a common goal, or maybe even just hang out occasionally because they want to.
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+1.
I am not sure that I would necessarily recommend The Fantastic Journey (1977), since it is a cursed show with the effects budget of couch change that aired ten episodes, sort of jossed its own premise, and lost its lead actress to illness before the end of its micrometric run, but the character played by Roddy McDowall is a literal villain of the week who gets adopted into the main cast and it's a brilliant dynamic, because while he does become attached to the other characters, his moral compass isn't theirs and neither are his priorities and he remains to the end the kind of person who cares very much on the level of individuals he's gotten to know—his love language is not saying so—and has a lot of trouble bothering about the welfare of anyone else, at least until dragged into it. (He is, obviously, my favorite character.)
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once again it's Zemo having his life saved/being pushed back into living by someone he very validly assumed would have wanted him to die, whether he wants to live or not
I agree on the parallels on the end of CA:CW.
I'm sorta laughing/crying imagining Bucky explaining his plans to Ayo though. "I'm going to talk to him, and then pretend to shoot him, and then drop the bullets on the ground. That's when you come in! :D?"
I don't know that the Raft scene was exactly evil, or villain. Well, OK, murdering people is still wrong. But there's a lot of the show that is saying, good motivations but still terrible execution (Karli, Walker even). I don't think Zemo is painted villain-y much at all by the narrative. They gave him a good and sympathetic point of view (super soldiers should not exist) which fit into his previous actions and makes sense given his history. (Though of course being a superhero film, he'll probably forever be fundamentally opposed to stuff happening lol). He's moved from villain which will be vanquished forever because he's only in one film, to one who is a much more ambiguous, sometimes ally mostly enemy role, I think. AND I LOVE THAT. Marvel's villains are so one and done and it's so frustrating.
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I'm sorta laughing/crying imagining Bucky explaining his plans to Ayo though. "I'm going to talk to him, and then pretend to shoot him, and then drop the bullets on the ground. That's when you come in! :D?"
HAHAHAHAHAAAAA. Yes. And Ayo just listening like "....."
Bucky, you drama queen.
But there's a lot of the show that is saying, good motivations but still terrible execution (Karli, Walker even). I don't think Zemo is painted villain-y much at all by the narrative. They gave him a good and sympathetic point of view (super soldiers should not exist) which fit into his previous actions and makes sense given his history.
Yeah, agreed! One thing I really liked about the show, even when I thought the actual narrative didn't quite deliver, was that nearly everyone involved on the antagonist side (Zemo, Karli, Walker) were not one-note villains but were basically decent people driven by various ideologies, needs, etc. The show was very shades-of-gray about all of this and I appreciated that. Good motivations, terrible execution, as you say.
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In the second scene at the end of the episode, after everything goes down in Madripoor, he brings them food - doesn't just get his butler to do it, but does it himself.
Oh that is such a neat observation. You are right he does feed them and it does show a kind of caring and growing closer! (I kind of feel that coming off of Sleuth this should have been more obvious to me XD But I was too busy noticing that he was overhearing their conversation and wondering about the implications of that)
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I kind of feel that coming off of Sleuth this should have been more obvious to me XD But I was too busy noticing that he was overhearing their conversation and wondering about the implications of that
Thoughtful yet nefarious, the Zemo brand. XDD
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One of the interesting things about Zemo is that he really does act rationally and out of sincere conviction when by Marvel conventions, villains normally don't. (Magneto being the big exception.) The usual Marvel villain move would be to pocket one of the serum vials when he gets the chance, but he doesn't because he sincerely doesn't want it, and also isn't willing to compromise his principles even when he could take it for a short term advantage. He destroys them all, just like he always said he wanted to.
However, a vial isn't a person.
It's true that Bucky didn't take the serum voluntarily and the choice to do so is important in itself, but Zemo always knew this. It's literally public knowledge. He had to get to know Bucky before the logical escape clause became relevant.
So basically, I think he got to like Bucky and then came up with an excuse that allowed him to rationalize being okay with him existing.
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It's true that Bucky didn't take the serum voluntarily and the choice to do so is important in itself, but Zemo always knew this. It's literally public knowledge. He had to get to know Bucky before the logical escape clause became relevant.
Agreed that it's not just the technical loophole that matters to him (even if he's now decided that that's important so he can justify his exception). I think getting to know Bucky and really realizing that Bucky's a person, not an ideological abstraction, was the key--it's a lot harder to treat people as a categorical enemy once you've spent time with them. But because there is a loophole with Bucky, he can focus on that and not have to reappraise his whole view on supersoldiers and superheroes ... or at least, not yet. I honestly think spending more time with Sam would ultimately make the most difference to him, because while Sam didn't and wouldn't take the serum, he's still got amped-up fighting capabilities while being absolutely committed to using those for the public good rather than personal power. And I think long-term exposure to that reality would really make Zemo reevaluate the black-and-white nature of his convictions.
Also, honestly, being more engaged with the world in general. I need to rewatch Civil War (not a sentence I thought I'd be saying), but IIRC, his objections only came about in the wake of losing his whole family during the Battle of Sokovia, so while his convictions are genuine, they're also a kind of trauma response: he blames superheroes for the loss of his family, ergo fuck superheroes, with a patina of actually interesting philosophical rationale over that. I think as he stops being so okay with dying, he'll let go of a cause that sprung out of death and was always kind of designed to lead back to death. Gotta get involved with the unending project of trying to help out the world, not the simplistic "do this and then die" project of eliminating the people he thinks are problems.
More Turkish delight, less murder.
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So basically, I think he got to like Bucky and then came up with an excuse that allowed him to rationalize being okay with him existing.
Yes, I agree with this! I'll be back to respond to everyone in more depth when I'm able to a little later (all the comments are GREAT; I'm so glad people showed up to share my Zemo Feelings) but yeah, the involuntary aspect is certainly a factor, but I think it's more of an after-the-fact justification than the actual reason, where the actual reason is that he's gotten to know Bucky as a person and likes him and is now finding reasons why Bucky is different and can be personally excused from his revenge crusade. I agree with what
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I tried to count how many vials he smashed, and I'm pretty sure they kept it obscured, in case they want to have that thread picked up again. He missed the one Walker got, and possibly one or two others.
It's true that Bucky didn't take the serum voluntarily and the choice to do so is important in itself, but Zemo always knew this. It's literally public knowledge. He had to get to know Bucky before the logical escape clause became relevant.
I can see this but also I think his grief isn't as raw as it is in CA:CW. He seemed to be just operating on vengeance against the Avengers at that point. TFATWS is 5 years past that (or maybe a little more? Timeline is a bit fuzzy). He's been sitting in prison and thinking about it for a long time.
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It's really an interesting thought once I thought about it, given how hard Bucky usually has to try to convince people of that - having it just happen like that, due largely to Bucky being Bucky.
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I wonder if it was partly pragmatic. He's willing to work with Sam and Bucky because he genuinely wants to take out the super soldiers. He doesn't know how many there, where they are, who's making them. By the time they leave Madripoor, he's killed Nagel and the source of the serum, not only is there none in the lab but it's been firebombed so any notes are probably ashes. They've just tried to confront the super soldiers and failed (and he shot Karli several times without much luck) plus Walker interfering with their actions. I wonder if he just felt the way Sam and Bucky were doing it - plus Sam wanting to talk Karli down - was just not going to work, so he's not only slipping off when the opportunity arises, but deciding he's done as much as he can with Sam and Bucky and needs to handle it himself. Plus the Dora are here :)
And on the Bucky choking Zemo, part 1 and 2, lol, there's been much discussion and also gifsets. I think Zemo does react in a scared way in both, it's just in the Latvia scene it's a wider shot showing more of the body language (plus a reaction shot of his expression straight on), whereas the plane scene is just a shot of their faces, but I think he does a whole body flinch in both. Daniel Bruehl does great reactions, he's a lot of fun to watch even when the action is centered on other people in the scene :D
Ooh I found an illustrative gifset: https://daniellbruhl.tumblr.com/post/649111091405799424/bucky-gets-aggressive-zemo-mark-me-down-as
Also while scrolling for that gifset I found this :D https://daniellbruhl.tumblr.com/post/648218121541419008/oh-no-hes-hot
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https://archiveofourown.org/works/31026749?view_full_work=true
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